F-35 Waterloo! Customers to rival a huge contract cancellation

In September 13th, American NBC television reported, a major setback for F-35 fighter project experience, has been completely solid.

A major customer of F-35, officially decided to purchase its competition for mobile phones, and gave up orders for already confirmed F-35 fighters.

This country is the nearest neighbor of the United States: canada. In September 13th, Canada received confirmation from the US government that it would allow the launch of the $5 billion 230 million F-18E/F fighter procurement program. Thus, Canada's abandonment of the original order for 60 F-35 fighter jets has become a reality.

To add insult to injury, Boeing's F-18E/F happens to be F-35's biggest rival. In the case of delays in F-35 progress and a unit price far exceeding the original expected value, the Canadian contract awarded by Boeing was a major victory in the fierce competition with Lockheed Martin, which developed F-35!

Many countries now see Canada's decision to abandon F-35 and buy very mature F-18E/F fighters. This time, Canada decided to buy 10 F-18E single seater fighters and 8 F-18F two seater fighters.

The Canadian Prime Minister made a bold decision to cancel the F-35 contract

Sounds like a total price of $5 billion 230 million, making the machine's price becomes $two hundred million, but in fact this includes improved F414-GE-400 turbofan engine, AN/APG-79 active phased array radar, target detection AN/AAQ-33 "sniper" pods, gun weapons, new wireless electric and electronic warfare system, helmet display, and a large number of accessories. Canada will also receive the most lethal AIM-9X Block2 advanced air-to-air missile. Most importantly, training has been included in this price.

So, in fact, the Boeing fighter is still cheaper than F-35.

Canada's efforts to switch to Boeing fighter jets have not been smooth sailing.

A few days ago, according to the Australian SKY TV reports, from the beginning of the year came to upgrade F-18 "old air hornet Canada, to save large sums of defense budget, consider giving up the purchase of F/A-18E/F, shifted from the Australian Air Force purchases a new second-hand basic F-18. Canadian lawmakers were once tough, saying: "(we) will still buy new military aircraft, but considering the relationship between Boeing and China's aviation industry, they will not be considered partners."."

At that time, Canada had sent a delegation to Australia to see the specific conditions of the fighters. Australia also hopes to sell the fighters to clear space for the upcoming F-35 fighters.

Facts have proved that this is mainly Canada and Boeing, the United States negotiations skills, and ultimately the U.S. government adopted the Canadian buy Boeing new fighter specific program.

F-18 fighter aircraft commissioned by the United States in 1970s has been incorporated into Boeing Macdonald - Douglas (McDonnell Douglas) aircraft carrier research and development aircraft carrier. Today, there are 6 derivative models, the main U.S. Navy and multinational military active aircraft. F/A-18E/F is Boeing's significant performance improvement model based on the basic F-18 fighter.

Bright Canadian CF-18 fighter commemorative paint

The decision in Canada is not without controversy, because many experts believe that cheap F-18E/F does not meet the long-term needs, is a short-sighted choice, F-35 is the real object should be considered. Moreover, after F-35 enters the mass production stage, the price will have the obvious drop. But the decision by the Canadian government has been irreversible.